


Scribbles on Our Souls

by Foxglove_Fiction



Category: Doctor Strange (2016), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Canon Divergence - Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Don't copy to another site, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Humor, Humor, M/M, Multi, Polyamory, Soulmates, no beta we die like men
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-27
Updated: 2019-10-27
Packaged: 2021-01-04 09:09:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,067
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21195179
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Foxglove_Fiction/pseuds/Foxglove_Fiction
Summary: In a world where everyone has their soulmates' first thoughts written on their wrists in their soulmate's handwriting, Tony Stark and Virginia Potts have a perplexing mystery - their mutual soulmate's handwriting is utterly illegible.





	Scribbles on Our Souls

**Author's Note:**

  * For [JeromeSankara](https://archiveofourown.org/users/JeromeSankara/gifts), [LadyRosa](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyRosa/gifts).

> Inspired by LadyRosa and prompted further by JeromeSankara... I wrote this all in one sitting with a bit of wine so uh. There are probably mistakes. There are probably tonal issues. I did not edit this. Y'all are getting this pretty raw. Enjoy.

It came with her first period. It came on his first day at MIT.

She was miserable, and her head rested in her hands as the pain in her gut built and at first, she'd thought her mascara was running. It wasn't.

He was celebrating. Ecstatic to be out from under the thumb of his father. To be in a dorm. To meet his new best friend. He thought it was grease. It wasn't.

_ And who is this now? _ Written in neat, precise writing across her wrist…

_ If he doesn’t explain himself, I swear to God... _ Written in the most elegant script he’d ever seen…

… and unintelligible scribbling beneath it.

She put the scribbles out of her mind for a while, focusing on the first part, tracing the letters with her fingers and letting the proof of her soulmate wash over her. She cried - not that she hadn’t been crying before with how much her body ached, but this was a different crying.

He leapt out of his seat, twisting and turning his arm under better lighting to try and figure out what the scribbles were, before calling out to his roommate in hopes the older man could explain. It took them about four hours, but in the end they couldn’t come up with a solid answer for the scribbles.

“Two soulmates?” Rhodey suggested. Virginia wondered.

“Is that possible?” Tony inquired. Virginia asked the ceiling.

It ate at him not to know what the scribble said. If he didn’t know what it said, would he ever know if someone was really his soulmate? He tried to copy down the writing. He tried to make sense of it. He couldn’t.

She kept it to herself for the longest time. She couldn’t get a grasp of what either of her soulmates might be like from the writing on her wrist but there were books, at least, that told that this kind of thing, while uncommon, was possible. Two people who loved her. How lucky she was - and people made a point of it.

He drank, he wrote, he tried to make sense of the marks on his wrist. He thought he managed to pick out a letter or two, but every time he thought he had he second-guessed himself. He didn’t know what his soulmates were like, but he couldn’t help but wonder if he was going to be stuck with someone else like his father. If he was ever going to escape that.

She lay awake at night, wondering less and less about what the people whose writing on her wrist were like, and more about what the scribbles she’d initially ignored said. Did the person like her to begin with? Did they hate her? Did they think she dressed oddly, or was her hair messy when they met?

He developed handwriting recognition software, voice to text software, anything that might help him determine what was on his wrist, to help others with his issues. To help others find their soulmates, even while he avoided seeking out his own - unable to ignore the mysterious scribbles, but in no rush to be in a relationship with someone he was increasingly certain was like his father.

She was furious when she stormed into his office. Furious at the error. Furious that everyone was dismissing her, belittling her, telling her  _ he couldn’t be wrong _ like he was somehow perfection itself. She knew he was a genius. She knew. That didn’t account for this. She’d just been loudly threatening his guards with pepper spray when he opened the door.

_ If he doesn’t explain himself, I swear to God… _ the thought slowly died as a warm smile washed over his face and amusement lit in honey brown eyes.

_ And who is this now? _ He asked himself as he opened the door to see the beautiful woman red in the face as she turned striking blue eyes to him and narrowed them.

“I’m going to need you to explain this to me,” she stated bluntly, and Tony Stark shrugged a little, turning to head back into his office as he waved her after him.

“Tell me, what have I done to earn your ire at ten in the morning?”

He rolled his sleeves up as he returned to tinkering, and her eyes honed in on his wrist automatically, out of habit. She couldn’t read anything from this distance, but for a moment she thought she saw a familiar smudge on his wrist. She was tired. It could have been anything.

She handed him the papers with her notes, and he froze in place as he looked at the familiar, elegant handwriting on them. He tried to focus on what she was explaining. He tried to figure out what she was saying, but his gaze flickered to the writing on his wrist just to check.

“A mistake?” he inquired, processing part of it, “kind of you to point it out. Most people around here don’t seem to have the balls.” He looked up again, doing his best to remain nonchalant as he adjusted his wrist more openly, not missing how her eyes flicked to it. “And threatening my guards with pepper spray… ballsy, miss…?”

“Potts. Virginia Potts.”

Tony smirked, and she only caught it out of the corner of her eye as her eyes settled on the words that were apparent on his wrist with her proximity. He was talking. She was certain he was talking but… there was no way. Those words - the thought had just crossed her mind…

“ _ Pepper? _ ” Her eyes snapped up at that and the smirk on his face became softer and warmer.

“I said my name is Virginia.”

“Pepper suits you better,” Tony reasoned, “and you responded to that rather than your name when I was trying to get your attention. Did you want an example of my writing as well?”

She was embarrassed to have been caught, but she couldn’t help but give the smallest nod, sitting as he gestured to one of the chairs.

Over the years many things changed between them. She insisted that they cultivate a healthy friendship before pursuing anything else, and Tony was remarkably respectful of that - he even encouraged her on a couple of other dates once or twice, and she suspected he had some reservations about her for some reason - but their friendship certainly bloomed into much more.

Nights of laying awake, bantering, bickering, and pondering the future, including the numerous nights they worked together to try and interpret their matching scribbles. Scribbles they both had. Scribbles that neither one of them understood.

“Whoever they are, they’re clearly a doctor,” Tony griped one night, drunk and laying across her bed as she got undone after a gala. “Everyone knows you can’t read a doctor’s writing.”

“You’re a doctor,” Pepper pointed out as she unclipped her earrings in and smoothed her hair back.

“I have a Ph.D., I am not  _ a doctor _ , they’re different things and you know it.”

The thing they both agreed on, however, was that their marks matched. Stroke for stroke, they matched exactly. No matter what it said, their mysterious soulmate thought the same thing of both of them when they first met, and neither of them could make sense of it. Years passed and they wondered at times if they’d met someone at a gala, at an event, at a meeting, during a Stark internship…

… how would they ever know?

Tony was into his fifties, with years of heroism behind him when they agreed that they would stop waiting to meet their soulmate. He asked her to marry him, and she couldn’t bring herself to say no. She loved him, for all his flaws and all the stress he brought her, Tony Stark meant the world to her. She was his Pepper - and she’d grown so used to the name that few people even called her Virginia anymore.

It was then they met him, though they had no way of knowing then. He called himself Doctor Stephen Strange, and he’d come to throw yet another wrench in their lives. He was haughty. Snarky. They looked at one another, and Pepper never got the chance to say a word to the man before they were torn well and away.

Tony wasn’t sure at first if he hated the man. He’d long considered snark a sign of intelligence, and Strange had snark in spades, but it wasn’t until the man had helped him stand again after their ship crashlanded that he suspected anything at all. Soon after he helped to stabilize the man after some magical seizure, and he noticed the scars on the man’s hands - saw how they trembled… wondered.

It wasn’t until Stephen was ash that Tony realized, and the full weight of things sat on his shoulders.

As he floated in space he wondered at Pepper’s luck. She never got to meet the man Tony was certain was their soulmate… and she was about to lose him, as well. How many others had lost their soulmates? And why?

He recorded messages - as many as he could. He fought with himself about whether he ought to tell Pepper about Stephen or not. He wasn’t certain if he dared hurt her like that, but when he found himself collapsed on his knees in front of her, safely on Earth again, he couldn’t keep it to himself.

It hurt.

“He was a doctor,” Tony laughed, a manic laugh that broke him into tears. “He was a doctor… our soulmate…”

“That man…?”

“Doctor Stephen Strange,” Tony affirmed, finding that it hurt him all the more that Pepper only knew him enough to refer to him as ‘that man’. That man was their soulmate. That man could’ve been everything to them.

That man was gone, along with so many others. That man would never be so lucky as to know Pepper Potts. That man had lost his soulmates before he’d ever really gotten to know them.

And he grieved.

Pepper, much to his heart’s dismay, did not grieve the way he did. She hadn’t known what to grieve. She had only relief. She was relieved to have Tony. Relieved not to be alone. Relieved that they had a future. She knew she should care about the stranger, but she couldn’t when she was so busy caring for her fiancé. For the man she knew. For the man she loved.

Over the five years that followed she had moments. She wondered what he was like. He’d reminded her of Tony in the few minutes they’d interacted, but that was all she could really say. He was attractive, and she could see hints of what she might’ve loved about him. But it wasn’t the same as what Tony had done.

Tony needed to know more. Tony needed answers. And when given the opportunity to do something to bring him back - him and Peter, and half the world - she couldn’t stop him. She knew. And a small part of her selfishly wanted to know more about who the man whose scribbles had been permanently etched into her skin was.

She wanted answers.

What did it say?

It wasn’t the right time right away. Not when the man was proving that he was very much a doctor in how he cared for Tony in the aftermath of everything. Pepper still didn’t know if Stephen knew they were his soulmates, but she didn’t need to say a word to see how much he cared about Tony. She sat side by side with him while Tony was recovering from the loss of his arm and they waited to see if he’d wake.

Her fingers curled between his trembling ones, and she could see the confusion and uncertainty in his eyes as she held tight. She knew he wasn’t certain if she was doing it because she needed support or not. It was three days before she wore a short-sleeved shirt on purpose, and made the marks on her wrist plainly clear.

He didn’t say a word, only held her hand tighter. If he hadn’t known before, she was almost certain he knew then. She’d never seen him in short sleeves before that - and from the sounds of things, neither had Tony. So when he reciprocated, she realized it was a certain unspoken politeness. She’d shared her marks, and he felt that it was only appropriate to share his.

When she found herself peeking to make certain, she couldn’t help but chuckle at the scrawl she knew to be Tony’s on his wrist.  _ Ah, shit, Pepper’s not going to like this one bit... _ and her own writing beneath, a clear,  _ And here we go again. _

She wondered how the man must’ve felt seeing those marks on his wrist for most of his life. Neither of them felt positive - she certainly hadn’t felt positively about his arrival, not with everything going on. Her hand reached for his, gently drawing it up and wordlessly pressing a kiss to his wrist, leaving him to give her a thoroughly uncertain look, even as she looked up with a soft smile.

“... he wanted me to know you, you know,” she stated softly, breaking the silence for the first time. “He thought it might be you… our mystery, the person we’d been waiting for so long to meet… he was so desperate that I meet you… that the promises written on our wrists were fulfilled.”

“Mrs. Stark-”

“Pepper,” she insisted, “or Virginia, if you must. Please…”

The doctor swallowed thickly, reaching to hold her hand gently and pressing a gentle kiss to her fingers. “I’m not sure that is a promise that can ever be fulfilled…”

“... I want to know you,” she insisted softly. “I want to know what it would be like to have you as a part of our lives. I want you to meet Morgan…”

“Mrs. Stark… Virginia… I don’t think it’s wise that you expose your child to someone with a lifestyle like mine. I will only endanger her, and you, and what fragile peace you could have.”

“I married Iron Man. After a certain point, I have to come to the realization that peace is never going to be a part of my life,” Pepper smiled softly. “But you care about him, already. I can see it in the way you handle him, the way you focus on his well-being, the way you fuss. You’re ours, Stephen. We decided that a long time ago, over hours and hours of trying to figure out what on Earth was written on our wrists…”

“It’s-”

“Shhh, Tony will want to know. Tell us when he wakes up.”

For all the care Stephen gave Tony, he spent as much time with Morgan as he could as well, doing his best to make sure Pepper got as much time as she needed with Tony before the man woke. It was one of those times that Tony did wake, his hand tightening around Pepper’s as he slowly roused, leaving her to smile warmly at him, tears in her eyes as she leaned in to kiss him.

Stephen didn’t explain anything right away, though when he was summoned he had Morgan swaddled in a red cloak, shrieking with excitement as the living cloak flew around the room and he sighed.

“I can’t do anything about them, I tried,” the doctor lamented lowly, looking surprised as they welcomed him over. He didn’t move, and it took Tony trying to sit himself up before the man moved closer to allow Tony to grasp him and pull him in close.

“Fucking hell, Houdini, it’s good to see you,” Tony greeted lowly, grasping him tightly.

“... hey… it’s… good to see you awake,” Stephen responded uncertainly, though Pepper could see the way he slowly sunk in against Tony, his face burying against the man and his body relaxing a little at a time. “I’m… so glad you’re alright.”

“Did… you think I wouldn’t be?”

“... I didn’t know. I didn’t know if you’d live or…”

“Is that what was holding you back?” Pepper asked as she watched Morgan and the cloak for a moment, before reaching out to curl up against the men. “... did you think… you’d killed him?”

The way Stephen’s hands tightened in their spot told her everything, and she moved closer to hold him tightly.

“You would’ve taken care of my girls for me, wouldn’t you?” Tony asked lowly, and a soft sob choked out of the doctor. “... I know you would have,” Tony supplied softly, “they would’ve been in good hands.”

“Hands so good that you’ve spent your life wondering what they could’ve written on your wrist?”

“... I admit, I was kinda annoyed that you went and died before clarifying that part,” Tony teased, and Stephen’s laughter sounded miserable and hoarse, stifled as it was against the man’s shoulder.

“You’re perfect together,” he stated quietly.

“What?” Pepper tilted her head in confusion as the sorcerer sat up, his eyes red and tears staining his cheeks.

“I saw you together and thought… you’re perfect together…”

“We are,” Tony agreed hoarsely. “All of us are. You’ll see.”

“You have a lot of faith in this soulmate stuff,” Stephen responded, looking down at the injured man.

“Of course I do. It brought me Pepper… it gave me Morgan… and I have the utmost faith in you. I saw what you were willing to give up. The faith you put in me. The trust. So few people give me that, and you barely knew me and you trusted me with everything…”

“I left a lot of responsibility on your shoulders-”

“You  _ believed in me, _ ” Tony clarified. “And if you’ll let me, I’ll make sure you believe in me every day for the rest of our lives.”

Stephen’s hands were occupied as the cloak and small child joined them. Pepper held one, Tony the other with his good hand, and the cloak and Morgan sat in the midst of their little triangle as the girl flopped gently over Tony’s chest and smothered the man in excited kisses, declaring her excitement about his return.

They had a lot to learn about their new addition, but neither Tony nor Pepper could bring themselves to be unhappy with that. Stephen, as it turned out, was fantastic with kids, and as busy as he was he found ways to make time for them when they needed him.


End file.
